No worries about the cigars, just wipe them off, get the humidity back down, and enjoy. Some really good mold information from a smart feller:
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Originally Posted by joed
that white mold - claudisporium - isn't really a problem at all.
The white mold is an airborn spore that is present everywhere - all the time.
This particular mold will grow with the least amount of moisture - it is the first mold to appear. It is a light surface mold and is easily removed. It will appear within 12 hours of introduction of moisture and goes dormant as soon as the moisture levels drop.
Quite frequently, the change in temperature caused by the pressurized cabin of an airplane will cause enough condensation (from cigars kept at ideal humidity by the way) to result in increased surface moisture on the cigar wrappers to allow this mold to appear. Usually, by the time the cigars reach normal temps, the moisture level is corrected and the mold is dormant.
Claudisporium is considered a harmless mold. However, there are no federal standards regarding exposure to mold because everyone reacts differently. So, it's never safe to say that any particular mold is always harmless.
The reality is that this particular mold exists everywhere - each and every day we breath in more of this little critter that you can see on the "moldy sticks" that were described. If the human body did not have the ability to deal with inhaled mold spores - we would all be dead many times over.
Quarantine is not going to stop the spread of the mold. Like I said - it's everywhere all the time. You need to control the moisture - and that means a bit more than relative humidity - the one factor in the equation that many folks do not give enough consideration is the "dew point". We talk about air born moisture and temperature (relatively humidity) - but at what temperature will that Rh condense. If the surface temp of a cigar drops to the dew point - moisture will condense on the cigar - which is of course - 100% surface humidity and will support amplified mold growth.
The mold spores need two things to move into the amplified growth stage - Moisture and food. The food is any organic material.
Mold digests food outside it's body - so, the spores need to land on an organic surface that has surface moisture - they extrude the digestive chemicals and then intake the digested food and begin to grow.
If you remove the moisture - the mold will go dormant. It's just not a heartbreaker to see the white, cloudy, fluffy mold on a cigar as many seem to think.
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